Alcazar’s One-Acts  

The Alcazar Ensemble is staging a second weekend September 6-8 of the Hanne Pedersen Playwright Competition. That competition features four one-act plays from tri-county authors in honor of its late namesake, one of the co-founders of the Carpinteria Community Theatre. Sophie Goldstein’s This House is Legacy traces a neighborhood that no longer exists but has never been destroyed when children go through their late mother’s things and share memories, while Leslie Vitanza AnnRenee’s Extended Family is a comedic exploration of modern-day relationships and what being part of a family means. Happy Merry, by Michael P. Adams, follows a married couple who are asked to pick up the husband’s sister while on their way to a Christmas celebration, and Robert Weibezahl’s October Surprise, directed by Asa Olsson, follows two former sorority sisters – one now running for Congress and the other following a more traditional mommy path – who confront each other after more than 20 years apart. Visit www.thealcazar.org.

SBMA’s Sunday: Sounds, Sheep and Stories

Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Free Community Day features a flurry of family activities both participatory and observational in celebration of its continuing exhibit “A Legacy of Giving: The Lady Leslie and Lord Paul Ridley-Tree Collection.” Music on the front terrace comes from the local ensembles Slideways Trombone Quartet, Bottom Line Brass Tuba Quartet, and Mariachi Las Olas de Santa Barbara. Also on the terrace are the Counting Sheep Interactive Installation where guests can sculpt a black and white sheep to take home or to leave behind with the flock, and don a shepherd costume for a photo à la “The Shepherd” by Henry Herbert La Thangue. Terrace fun will also include a Double-sided Mixed Media Mural where budding artists can practice pointillist painting or layering a variety of unexpected materials onto a tree-lined landscape. At the Family Resource Center, kids and families can add color and texture to a black and white reproduction of Claude Monet’s “Afternoon on the Seine” with oil pastels, and blend the colors with baby oil to finish. Tours will take place inside the galleries, which also host Bilingual Storytime. Details at www.sbma.net/events/free-community-day.